9:57 AM,
Apr. 20, 2013

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Tamar and Nilton Duque took an amazing leap of faith when they bought a run-down, 12,000-square-foot Mediterranean home in Mount Vernon back in 1999.

"My husband, who is a contractor, wouldn't even go into the basement," Tamar says, with a small shudder. "It looked like there had been fires in the house; the basement was so dark and we didn't know what was down there."

Anthony Davis and his wife, Dione, were also intrigued by the then-rambling white house, which sits up on a small hill on Primrose and Frederick Place, in a neighborhood of stately brick Colonials and Queen Anne Victorians. ...